Is Britain racist? This binary question is unhelpful and obstructs real progress

The best of Voices delivered to your inbox every week - from controversial columns to expert analysis Sign up for our free weekly Voices newsletter for expert opinion and columns Sign up to our free weekly Voices newsletter SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Eight million ethnic minority Britons have very different experiences – half of us were born here, to parents and grandparents who were migrants. The Sewell Commission consists of a group of ethnic minority professionals, often with personal experience of the opening-up of new opportunities that were available to the first British-born generation, but not to their parents. The commission’s report concludes with a vote of thanks to Black Lives Matter, saying that “we owe the many young people behind that movement a debt of gratitude for focusing our attention once again on these issues”. Yet the commission report itself endorses the Macpherson definition – while calling for more care in how to apply it, because not all disparities are evidence of discrimination.